


put on your bravest face

by klainelynch



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Episode: s03e19 Sozin's Comet Part 2 The Old Masters, Gen, Introspection, Missing Scene, No Dialogue, but that’s not how anxiety works, logically Zuko shouldn’t have worried about Iroh forgiving him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:28:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24963775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klainelynch/pseuds/klainelynch
Summary: He had never hurt anyone like he had hurt Uncle. No one had ever shown Zuko the kind of love that Uncle had shown him. His mother had loved him, but she was gone before he was hard to love.
Relationships: Iroh & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 143





	put on your bravest face

If Zuko thought about it, everything that he had done over the last few weeks had been preparing him for this moment. 

He had genuinely wanted to help the members of this weird little family that he had joined, but he had also wanted to make amends with them. Teaching firebending or finding out what happened to a parent didn’t cancel out all of the terrible things he had done, of course, but they were _something_. Tangible proof that, for all his faults, Zuko wasn’t a liar. He did feel true remorse over the pain he had caused and wanted to make it up to them. 

He could spend the rest of his life making it up to people around the world, and it wouldn’t be enough.

But all of that paled in comparison to the man sleeping in front of him. He had never hurt anyone like he had hurt Uncle. No one had ever shown Zuko the kind of love that Uncle had shown him. His mother had loved him, but she was gone before he was hard to love. Uncle had seen him at his worst, these last few years, and yet he had stuck by him, even when Zuko sulked and raged and surely made Uncle’s life absolutely miserable. 

Zuko could make excuses, of course, but they didn’t change the fact that Uncle had given up everything for him, and Zuko had repaid him with a prison cell.

He breathed in slowly and exhaled even more slowly, more quietly. He couldn’t wake Uncle Iroh up. As much as he wanted to get this over with, he wouldn’t put himself first. Uncle deserved all the rest he could get. That left Zuko with his thoughts and his worries that Uncle would dismiss him the moment he woke up, but that was okay. 

Zuko deserved this pain. The knot in his stomach was a welcomed kind of ache. It was a punishment for all the hurt he had caused his uncle, and he had earned it.

_breathe in, breathe out_

He tried to remember what Uncle had taught him about patience. He tried to remember any of Uncle’s teachings, anything that could distract him from the racing thoughts in his mind.

Zuko wasn’t sure how he would make this up to Uncle; there was so much to repair. Today would be a good start. He would do his part to end this war, and then maybe Uncle would see that he was serious about wanting to do the right thing. If that wasn’t enough, then Zuko would just keep trying until it was. 

He would spend every day for the rest of his life doing whatever was necessary to regain Uncle’s trust. 

He remembered this feeling well— it was how he felt right after his banishment. All he wanted when he was thirteen was to prove to his father that he was a worthy son. Only this time, the one Zuko wanted to please actually cared about him. His father had never deserved his love; Uncle did. Uncle deserved everything he wanted and more, and if he didn’t want Zuko’s love anymore, he wouldn’t blame him. 

It would break him, of course, but it would be exactly what he deserved.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little ficlet to help me reconcile Zuko’s nerves with Iroh’s love. I remember watching this episode as a teenager and being confused as to why Zuko thought his uncle would hate him when it was very clear to me that Iroh would forgive him. Then I grew up, got anxiety, and Got It™ :)
> 
> Title is a lyric from Rush’s Bravest Face
> 
> Comments are always appreciated :)
> 
> Find me on tumblr at [klainelynch](https://klainelynch.tumblr.com/)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * A [Restricted Work] by [klainelynch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/klainelynch/pseuds/klainelynch) Log in to view. 




End file.
